OLATHE — Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum endorsed Monday the re-election of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, of Kansas, during a campaign event at a Johnson County used car dealership.

"We need to rally behind this man. This man is a visionary," Santorum said. "This shouldn't be a race. We all need to get to it. We need this to be a decisive, big win. It's only going to happen if you give all."

He said Republicans should pray daily for the governor and contribute time and money to the Brownback campaign.

"We're not going to win this election, we're not going to win America, unless we understand that we have to give — not just out of our excess time, not just out of our excess money — but we have to give so God will bless this nation," Santorum said. "If you're going to create this wave out of the state of Kansas, with your great governor and what he's been able to accomplish, we need to give."

Brownback and Santorum spoke to about 150 people from the same page on social issues as it related to the value of traditional family structure, as opposed to gay marriage, and by articulating opposition to abortion.

"Everybody is beautiful and dignified and a beautiful child of a loving God," the governor said.

Santorum, who represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2007, appeared with the governor at Cars4Less, an Olathe car dealership that opened in January. Santorum was to be with Brownback, also a former U.S. senator, during a Monday afternoon event at a Wichita theater.

About 25 supporters of K-12 public education — most wearing red T-shirts — picketed the morning political rally while offering their support for improvement in state aid to school districts and opposition to signing of a law by Brownback that stripped teachers of a personnel right commonly referred to as tenure. The majority had connections to school districts in the Johnson County area.

"Schools are the community's heartbeat," said Marcia Miller, a retired special education teacher. "Schools are still underfunded even with the Supreme Court ruling."

In March, the Kansas Supreme Court ordered the 2014 Legislature and Brownback to raise state aid to address inequities in the state's public school districts. Lawmakers complied by allocating $129 million by July 1.

Brownback's primary election opponent in August is Wichita business owner Jennifer Winn. If victorious, his general election foes would be presumed Democratic nominee Paul Davis, of Lawrence, and Libertarian Party candidate Keen Umbehr, of Alma.

Chris Pumpelly, spokesman for the Davis campaign, said the Democrat was "encouraged by the support he's earned from thousands of Kansans across the state."

"This campaign is about moderate, commonsense Kansas solutions to Kansas issues," Pumpelly said. "We're eager to continue reaching out to Kansans, regardless of party, to listen to their concerns and work to find bipartisan steps forward."

He said Davis and running mate Jill Docking would reveal "an unprecedented campaign endorsement" Tuesday in Topeka to a collection of invited guests.

Brownback said Kansas voters in November have the opportunity to make a clear choice in the governor's race, which he perceives to be a contest between himself and Davis.

"I'm a Reagan-style Republican. My opponent is an Obama-style Democrat," the governor said. "You want more taxes, more government, more regulation and to follow the Obama model?"

The mostly Republican crowd chanted: "No. No. No."

"Or," Brownback said to cheers, "go the Reagan model with less taxes, more individual freedom and a push back against the federal government?”

Brownback said one of his administration's objectives was to make Kansas the best state to raise a family and to expand a small business. He emphasized the elimination of income tax on owners of about 190,000 businesses in Kansas, including limited liability corporations or sole proprietorships.

He held out Cars4Less as an example of how the business tax reform sparked economic growth: "This is one of those small businesses that has benefited from a tax policy where we said to the entrepreneurs in the state of Kansas, 'You know what, we're going to have you keep the money that you would normally pay in taxes, because we know what you're going to do with it. You're going to re-invest it back in the economy.' Here's one that's done just that, taken that money and reinvested it in growing jobs."

Kirk Halbert, marketing manager of Cars4Less, said in an interview the company's ownership didn't attribute success of the dealership to any "political agenda."

"The main reason we'd host an event like this is to be pro-community," Halbert said.

Santorum, who lost re-election to the Senate in 2006, is considered a conservative on key social issues of abortion and same-sex marriage, opposing both. His presence in Kansas' two most populated counties — a stop also was planned for Sedgwick County at a theater in Wichita — is designed to help fire up Brownback's base of support.

In addition to serving together in the U.S. Senate, the pair have presidential history in common. Santorum ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for president in 2012, and Brownback's campaign for that nomination fell short in 2007.

Santorum won the Republican presidential caucus in Kansas by a wide margin over Mitt Romney, who went on to capture the nomination. Brownback dropped out of the 2008 race before the caucus in Kansas, which was won by Mike Huckabee over eventual nominee John McCain.

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Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback can stump for their 1950s social policies all they want to in the 21st century. Only a small minority of voters agree with them.

As for economics and tax policy, the fact that the Kansas budget has a $318 million dollar deficit as of June 30th speaks volumes about the FAILURE of the Brownback experiment.

VOTE for Davis-Docking and moderate Kansas legislative candidates who will return Kansas to the center politically and put us back on track economically in the August 5th primary and November 4th general elections.

"The Brownback campaign's invitation to supporters praised the governor for the state's economic status, in terms of unemployment and private-sector job creation, and the state's investment in public education."

As a great philosopher once said: Stupid is as stupid does. Let's see how many of the faithful can count.

There's not a better place for Brownback and Santorum to appear for a campaign rally. Two used car salesmen appearing at a used car lot. Remember Kansan's , don't allow them to convince you to buy the rust protection package.

Advice for the 18,000 "suspended" Kansas voters. Kansas voters in suspended status, this is for you.

There are about 18,000 of you out there in a weird electoral limbo. You have registered to vote, but you are not yet eligible. Your county’s election office has been working hard to let you know there’s a problem.

Some of you forgot to fill in a box on your registration form or provide an address or other pertinent information. But many more of you registered correctly at one of the Kansas vehicle offices.

Thanks to a federal law, people who show up at state offices for a new or renewed driver’s license must be offered a voter registration form.

The federal form doesn’t require people to provide proof that they are U.S. citizens. But a new Kansas law does. And therein lies the problem.

If you renewed your driver’s license, there’s a chance you didn’t produce proof of citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate, when you filled out your voter registration form at the vehicle office.

When your paperwork reached your county elections office, your registration was deemed incomplete and you were placed in suspended status.

This is a hassle for you, and for that you can thank your secretary of state, Kris Kobach, who pushed to make voting more difficult; your state Legislature, which took his advice and passed a voter suppression bill; and your governor, Sam Brownback, who signed the bill into law.

The good news is you can still vote. But you’re going to have to do some work.

First you find the required proof of citizenship, usually a passport or birth certificate. You produce it for your county election authorities, either in person or by electronically sending a copy or photo.

You can do this right up to the day before the Aug. 5 election, which features primaries for state and federal offices and some local races. Once advance voting starts on July 16, you can take your proof of citizenship to your county’s main elections office and clean up your registration and vote at the same time.

Of course, this may not be as easy as Kobach and other state officials would like to have the public believe.

Finding and obtaining a birth certificate can be difficult. Obtaining a passport is expensive. Not everybody has the skills to digitally photograph a document and email it to the elections office.

The worst part is there is no good reason for all of this trouble. Claims of voter fraud put forth by Kobach and others are vastly exaggerated. There is no evidence that non-U.S. citizens have voted in Kansas or that people attempt to vote with someone else’s ID.

If you show up to vote without your proof of citizenship, you will be given a provisional ballot. You can produce the required documentation up until a few days after the election, when a special board will consider the provisional ballots.

If you are one of the smaller number of Kansans who downloaded your voter registration form from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s website and don’t produce the documents required by Kansas, it’s possible that your vote will count in races for federal offices but not in state and local races.

If all of this sounds clunky, strange and unnecessary, it’s because it is.

Republican-controlled legislatures in many states are erecting barriers to voting that are harming college students, senior citizens and people in minority communities. Prompted by Kobach, Kansas passed one of the nation’s most repressive laws.

If this bothers you, the remedy is obvious. Get your registration completed in order and vote in the Aug. 5 primary and November 4th general elections.

Santorum is coming-seriously? Please read the Opinion column today in the New York Times, if you take Mr. Brownback at all seriously. It puts him and his cronies in a whole different light. Oh, and "SOBV", please try to resist the temptation to express yourself in this paper. Predictability is not always a good thing!

You have been invited to keep your conservative thoughts about what goes on in Kansas to yourself many times. Why do you always get mad about it? You know your comments are often made just to get under the skin of Liberals. They are also usually off subject and are attention getting only. Oh yes, you are most wanted on Kevin's blog. But when you are on general stories please try to stay on subject, if you can. And please do not make comments to only needle people unless you want to be told off. You, like Brownback, are your own worse enemy.

1. (n.) Junkword. Vulgar A byproduct of anal sex. Defined through a campaign to slander the name of Senator Rick Santorum based on his views against the gay rights movement and sodomy. Opponents chose to redefine the name in protest of his opinion.

Origins: From a definition contest put on by gay rights activist Dan Savage, author of the sex advice column "Savage Love", whose winning entry was announced on June 12th, 2003.